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Monday, April 18, 2016

Sweden: Green Party Minister compared Israelis to Nazis

The Swedish Green Party, Miljöpartiet (MP), which rules the country in cooperation with the Social Democrats, finds itself in crisis after damning revelations about Mehmet Kaplan, a Green Party member and Sweden’s Minister of Housing. Mr Kaplan showed a severe lack of good judgement, critics say, when he attended a dinner with leaders of rightwing extremist organizations last summer.

Mr Kaplan’s situation deteriorated on Sunday. In a video, shot in 2009 and published by SvD, Mr Kaplan compares Israel’s actions against Palestinians with the treatment of Jews in Hitler's Germany.

In the video, Mr Kaplan is seen discussing the historic background of today’s islamophobic tendencies in Europe and elsewhere.

”There are similes to what many Jews have testified about,” Mr Kaplan says in the video.

He goes on by stating that ”Israelis treat Palestinians much in the same way as Jews were treated in Germany during the 1930s”.

The video was recorded on March 27, 2009, when Mr Kaplan was not part of the Swedish government. He was, however, a member of Parliament and held a seat on the board of the Green Party.